Purpose

Friday, April 24, 2015

Heinrich responded, “I agree there’s lots of confusion. You must have been shocked!”

Rebekah added, “I certainly was. Satan has always hated us and the truth. Reading the Gospels and the book of Acts has caused me to look back over the centuries to see what happened to this message. The Gentiles overwhelmed the movement in the first few centuries and Jews were despised by Rome. When Constantine took over, the Roman Church continued in their bias against anything Jewish and developed their own replacements. That’s what Luther inherited and he’s trying to make this flawed system better, but it’ll never work if he ignores the foundational truths. It was very hard for my father and I to learn all this and realize that there was no one to talk to. Our fellow Jews would have disowned us and the Catholic church wouldn’t believe us. We were desperate for fellowship and support. And then our world fell apart...”

Heinrich filled in the gap, “when your father died, or was murdered. I know...mine fell apart too.” Heinrich felt the same empty feeling he experienced in front of the Judensau.

They both took a few moments to catch their thoughts, then Rebekah continued. “One big area of concern was looking at how the first believers lived. We studied what the Apostles taught and it was very different from what we saw in the church. Think about it- God had given His people this whole set of ethics and teaching in the Torah and the church essentially ignored it, even made fun of it. Take the holidays for instance. It’s obvious that Yeshua aligned all the key events of His earthly life with the Spring calendar: Passover is when He died, First Fruits is when He rose, Shavuot is when the Spirit set the movement on fire. But after the apostles died off what did the largely Gentile church do? They relegated them to the despised past and replaced them with their own events.”

Heinrich interjected, “I haven’t told you this, but about a year before we met I was involved in a secret mission to bring some important documents to Luther. I went into his room at the abbey and took a few things that he requested. Mostly books and manuscripts - but I also brought a calendar with all of the church holidays on it. I brought them to my contact,and he brought them to Luther. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints Day... These are an important part of the culture.”

“Whose culture? It’s not that new things can’t be added, if they’re based on Biblical events. Hannukah isn’t in Leviticus but Yeshua observed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the holidays fit into key future events. The point is they abandoned the Biblical calendar and have no context to move forward.”

Heinrich replied, “Well, I agree it’s a tangled mess and it may be easier to cut the strings than to untie it.”